Team Jeb Bush's Liaison to Religious Right Is Hardcore Culture Warrior
Bill Berkowitz printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Thu Mar 12, 2015 at 10:32:44 AM EST
In 2008, Senator John McCain's campaign recognized that he needed to shore up his credentials with the Religious Right, which was skeptical about his views on critical social issues, his team went all out courting mega-church Pastor John Hagee. And when Hagee agreed to support McCain, it was a major coup. It didn't take long, however, for that coup to blow up in the Senator's face, as video surfaced of Hagee claiming that God had sent Adolph Hitler to hunt the Jews, chase them from Europe, and drive them to Palestine. McCain was forced to dump Hagee. Is Jeb Bush making the same type of McCain-like deal by taking on the unbridled conservatism of Jordan Sekulow?

Unless you're Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum and you don't need a liaison to the Religious Right because you are your own liaison, Republican Party presidential candidates need someone to hook them up. George H.W. Bush had Doug Wead, George W. Bush had Tim Goeglein, and now Jeb Bush's Right to RISE PAC has landed Jordan Sekulow, as a senior adviser. Say goodbye to compassionate conservatism and hello to a hardcore anti-gay, anti-abortion culture warrior.

Jordan Sekulow is the conservative son of the hyper-conservative Jay Sekulow, the chief counsel of the conservative legal operation founded by Pat Robertson called the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which Jordan is the executive director. In a statement to Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, Sekulow said: "Governor Bush knows how to take bold conservative ideas and put them into action. While we must continue to fight the bad policies and unconstitutional overreaches of the current administration, it is time for conservatives to start talking to all Americans about how we, as a nation, can lead again at home and abroad. I am excited to begin a conversation with conservatives about Governor Bush's pro-life, pro-family, tax-cutting record in Florida and the ideas we need to put into action to give every American a chance to rise up."

The 32-year-old Jordan Sekulow's conservative credentials may boost Jeb's standing with the Religious Right and be perfect for primary season, but it could eventually put a scare into moderate and independent voters.

According to Salon's Luke Brinker, Sekulow has "been at the forefront of his organization's work to keep homosexuality criminalized in Africa, opposed abortion even when a mother's health is endangered, and espoused incendiary anti-Muslim views, a record that hardly conveys the 'inclusive conservative' message his candidate professes to support."

According to Salon, Sekulow, who in 2004 worked for George W. Bush serving as the National Youth Coalition Director, and in 2012, was Vice-Chair of Mitt Romney's National Faith And Values Steering Committee, helped establish "the East African Center for Law and Justice in 2009, as Kenya prepared to debate a new constitutional framework." EACLJ tasked itself with making sure the new constitution was just as toxic to its gay citizens as previous constitutions. Its efforts failed, but the organization still exists in Kenya.

"Beyond Africa, the ACLJ has also established a European Center for Law and Justice, which has campaigned against marriage equality throughout the continent, and the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, which backs Russia's notorious law banning the dissemination of so-called gay propaganda, according to the Human Rights Campaign," Salon reported.

Republican candidates' 'religious liaisons'

"Republican presidential candidates are in a difficult spot these days," Rob Boston, Director of Communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told me in an email. "There is no way a GOP aspirant to the White House can get through the primaries running as moderate; he or she must appeal to the base -- and that means soliciting Religious Right/Tea Party voters. That's why so many of them hire 'religious liaisons' whose main job is to reach out to the Religious Right. The challenge, then, is to find a way to steer back to a more moderate course during the general election without alienating the Religious Right too much, a task that has proved to be daunting for the last two Republican nominees.

"Most Americans don't care much about the social issues the Religious Right obsesses over, but a GOP candidate has to find a way to address these matters to be viable. In 2012, Jon Hunstman showed us what happens to a Republican presidential candidate who refuses to court this constituency," Boston added.

"The Sekulow name is well known in the Religious Right, so Jeb Bush's appointment makes sense from that perspective. The problem is, these guys can only a take a candidate so far. If they're trying to fake it, the "values voter" crowd will see through that. I've heard plenty of rumblings about Jeb Bush coming out of the far right. They don't trust him, and since the GOP field is likely to be crowded and feature several bona fide social conservatives, the Religious Right will have a choice of candidates.

"I think past religious liaisons actually worked in more ecumenical ways," Boston pointed out. "George H.W. Bush had Doug Wead, who, while a conservative, was able to approach a fairly broad array of religious communities. Bush's son, George W., hired a much more polarizing figure, Ralph Reed, as a consultant, and Tim Goeglein as his liaison." Goeglein, who The New York Times called "the eyes and ears of the White House in the world of religious conservatives and an emissary to that world for Rove and the president, was a particular favorite of Watergate felon and head of Prison Fellowship Ministries, the late Charles Colson, who said that "a lot of times when we have had serious questions and we needed administration backing to get them through ... if we call Tim, all of sudden things get through." Unfortunately for George W., Goeglein was forced to resign after it was revealed that he was guilty of serial plagiarism.

Team Jeb Bush's appointment of Jordan Sekulow, "tells you much about how the position of religious advisers has changed for Republican candidates over the years," Boston said.

There is no question that Jordan Sekulow is a man of the Religious Right: He is aggressively anti-Islam, vociferously opposing the so-called Ground Zero mosque, he has championed the persecution of gays in Africa and opposes marriage equality at home, and he is anti-abortion to the max. Whether he'll be able to adequately explain to Religious Right leaders why Bush's support for President Obama's Common Core education standards, and his moderate views on immigration doesn't disqualify him from losing their support remains to be seen.




Display:
They can't play both sides of the fence. So they have no shame or pang of conscience and will manipulate things like gerrymandering and the New Voter ID garbage. A solution in search of a trumped up problem. It allowed them to get elected where they normally shouldn't have. I can only wonder what else they will do since they don't like democracies unless they the ones who get elected.

by Nightgaunt on Sun Mar 15, 2015 at 10:45:53 PM EST

Nice piece. Did you happen to catch David Lane's (of AFA fame) snarky comment about Jeb Bush's efforts in the NYT this a.m.?:

While he admires Jeb Bush's record as governor of Florida, especially his opposition to taking Terri Schiavo off life support, he scoffed at Mr. Bush's choice for evangelical liaison, noting that he was "26 years old" and that his father was "behind Romney." And as far as Mr. Bush's hiring an openly gay communications director, he said: "I don't understand what he's up to. Personnel is policy."

Interesting turf battle. Guess this means David hasn't seen Jordan (who's 32) in six years, or (more likely) he lost out to him in the sweepstakes to be Jeb Bush evangelical BFF. Paul Pressler must be disappointed. :-)

by Lee Cokorinos on Mon Mar 16, 2015 at 05:13:00 PM EST


Q 1 - Herr Hitler spelled his first name "Adolf" - none of that old-fashioned orthography for him!

Q 2 - Pres. Obama had very little to do with the "Common Core" project, though the right wing likes to smear each by associating them with each other.

Note also that Jeb! has to somehow reconcile the Republican-base primary voters to his conversion to Catholicism. Can a second-generation Christian-Jew make that happen?

by Pierce R Butler on Sun Apr 12, 2015 at 09:09:19 PM EST



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